Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Thursday he was optimistic next month's Apec meeting in Sydney would bring progress on the issue of climate change. Howard has made climate change one of the top agenda items for the meeting of 21 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders beginning September 2.
The former climate change sceptic said the Apec meeting was a rare opportunity to bring the leaders of the world's two largest polluters, China and the United States, to the table to discuss the issue.
"Apec will be the first meeting which brings together both China and the United States, and they are the principal polluters, they're the two countries that have the largest volume of greenhouse gas emissions," he told Australian radio.
"This will be the first meeting where they come together at a head of government level in a manageable size. There's only 21 countries at Apec and that's a manageable meeting." Howard said other forums such as the United Nations could be unwieldy because 146 countries were involved in discussions, arguing the smaller numbers at Apec provided a better chance of reaching agreement on climate change.
"I think we can make a bit of progress," he said. "We're not going to solve the world's problems but I do think we are going to make some progress on that."
A meeting of Apec finance ministers in Australia last week to pave the way for next month's summit said the world needed to "go beyond" the Kyoto Protocol to address climate change.
Australia and the United States have refused to ratify the landmark 1997 treaty, which mandates cuts in the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming and runs until 2012. Howard has previously argued the Kyoto Protocol is unfair as it does not include emerging economies such as China and India, warning it would damage the Australian economy if adopted. The finance ministers' meeting agreed to examine market-based solutions to the problem such as a carbon emissions trading scheme.
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